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AFS Prize Deadlines Approaching

The deadlines for two AFS prizes are approaching. Please make your prize application or nomination plans now. For more information on these prizes, please visit www.afsnet.org/?page=Prizes.

Zora Neale Hurston Prize (Nomination Deadline: August 31)

This prize of $100 is named for the pioneering folklorist, ethnographer, and creative writer who lived from 1891 to 1960, worked in and wrote extensively about African American communities throughout the southern U.S., and is internationally known for her folklore collection Mules and Men (1935) and her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), as well as other notable works. The prize is given to a graduate or undergraduate student for the best work in any medium—including but not limited to papers, films, sound recordings, or exhibitions—on African American folklore.

Works submitted for prize consideration do not have to be about Hurston herself. One of the past prize-winning works was a graduate research paper that resulted in a thesis , another was a course paper written by a graduate student and later published as an article in the journal Southern Folklore, and the most recent was an ethnography project conducted by an undergraduate student for a senior seminar course.

The next deadline for nominations is August 31, 2014. To submit an application for the prize, please send (as a single PDF) a cover letter and your paper, attached to an email, to AFS Executive Director Timothy Lloyd at lloyd.100@osu.edu. Nominees not selected in the year of their original nomination are kept in consideration for two more reviews.

Benjamin A. Botkin Prize (Deadline: September 1)

The Benjamin A. Botkin Prize (of $500 and life membership in the Society) is given each year to an individual for significant lifetime achievement in public folklore. It recognizes the work of Benjamin A. Botkin (1901-1975), eminent New Deal-era folklorist, national folklore editor of the Federal Writers’ Project in 1938-1939, advocate for the public responsibilities of folklorists, author and compiler of many publications on American folklore for general audiences, and head of the Archive of American Folk Song at the Library of Congress from 1942 to 1945. Botkin has had a major impact on the field of public folklore and on the public understanding of folklore.

The review criteria are:

Engagement of a broad public audience in the materials of folklore

Impact on the field of public folklore: development of models, methodology, visibility, advocacy

Breadth of support, as evidenced by letters from community members and non-folklorists in addition to folklore colleagues

The next deadline for nominations is September 1, 2014. Please direct nominations, as well as your questions, to Botkin Prize Committee Chair Nancy Groce of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress (ngro@loc.gov; 202/707-1744).

Nominations should include a letter of nomination; a one- or two-page biography or resume of the nominee; three to five letters of support from a broad range of people, including community members who have benefited from the nominee's work and people from outside the folklore field in addition to colleagues. Letters should specifically address the review criteria listed above and should explain how the nominee has taken folklore to a broad public audience.

All nomination letters and support material must be submitted in electronic format so they can be distributed easily and quickly to the committee members. Nominations remain active for three years. Previous nominators should contact Groce to ensure that their nominations are still in the pool, to arrange to send electronic versions of materials previously sent in hard copy, and to inquire about adding new or updated materials to those nominations.